Five Times Rose and Tom Drove Each Other Crazy
by RicardianScholar Clark-Weasley
Summary: five drabbles throughout Tom's and Rose's relationship where they drove each other crazy


**1. Summer of Sulking:**

He left her with this emptiness that made no sense. She never felt so strange and unfulfilled when someone else left. The colours are all still there and the jigsaw has all the pieces when Caddy or Daddy leave for London. But the moment Tom is gone she felt there was something just missing. Something she couldn't quite touch.

It was slowly driving her mad because she had no idea what it meant.

She needed to keep busy and to keep distracted and not feel that missing piece. The tattoos were the start. She was so focused on inking her own skin, decorating herself, making herself look bright and colourful, that she wouldn't think about him as often. But then David came barrelling along and she needed to get rid off them. Needed to fill up that hole he reminded her that she had.

The shop-lifting had been a cry for help that no one heard. They heard her cries at night but they never heard them in the day. Michael probably did which was why he handed her a rose each morning. To starve off any crying that might start with no letter from America. From him. She kept moving and taking things, hoping inwardly, that it would attract Tom's attention and he'll come running back for her.

He'll stop the insanity that was slowly growing inside of her. The never ending emptiness and it'll be fine.

Instead she went to him to end all of the insanity.

They were all crazy. The Cassons. Ditzy Eve and Caddy, ferocious almost psychotic Saffron, strangely eerily calm Indigo and the insane Rose who switches from the admirer to the ego deflator in one second. The girl who'll be all smiles one minute and temper tantrum the next. As if she had some sort of split personality.

But who was he to talk? He could be the most engaging person in the room, winning everyone with a smile and made up story, one minute and then the most standoffish and cold person the next.

So maybe he was already crazy before he met the Cassons. Met her. But having no contact right now. Having her and her family forget all about him and his poor ill little sister...

It hurt him. Hurt him to the point where he was almost back to that dark little corner with only his guitar as a companion.

He couldn't play his guitar right now. It was a gift from the Cassons and his original one was left with them as a gift from him. To not play his guitar was a sure sign to the family that he was ill or dying. Probably both.

He wanted to end it all. Find a way back to England so he can grab hold of Rose and shake her hard. Scream at her for not writing. Indigo might have been busy. Eve is forgetful and so is Caddy. Saffy was never overly bothered by him. But Rose had no excuse at all. None whatsoever.

Then the phone rang cutting him out from his restless sleep and Rose's name had been said and suddenly the phone is ripped from his Dad's hand as he talks to some guy named David.

Rose was coming. The craziness died down and suddenly he was in the mood to play his guitar.

**2. The Boyfriend/Girlfriend Cliché:**

She got the boyfriend first. Thirteen and it was all so innocent and meant nothing really. But it started a new bout of insanity. Suddenly Tom had to have one girl after another. She was blonde or red headed. Dark or green eyes. Very tall. Anything that didn't look or resemble like Rose Casson who was too young for him anyway.

He used condoms and made sure they had birth control as well. Just because he wanted to lose himself in them didn't mean he wanted to be stuck with them for the rest of his life. Sometimes he got up in the middle of the night got dressed and found someone. Anyone female and young to start all over again.

"I do wish you settle down Tom. You're not a tom cat, you have no need to mate" his Dad said one breakfast when Tom came in at eight o'clock, exhausted and drained from his three different girls at the time.

Of course the constant swapping of girlfriends effected Rose. It was obvious she would never fill his requirements of a girlfriend and no one had particularly caught her eye recently. To block it out, those mental images of him with someone else, she had taken up fighting. She gave that redheaded gang leader from Indigo and Tom's preteen days a good run for his money.

She fought well and the injuries on her was earned by a decent fighter which was non-existent apart from Kai and Kieran who had no problems knocking more sense into her when it was needed.

That was until the knives came in. suddenly all the gangs started to keep penknives and switchblades on them. Rose kept both and she still got cut up at times. She didn't mind. It wasn't like she felt the pain anyway. It blocked out something far more painful when she's cleaning up the mess. And besides she hasn't died yet. She's too good of a fighter.

He found her after a bad cut. Some sneaky bugger caught her by surprise and she was bleeding heavily. Just nicked a vein, no big deal but it looked messy and worse than it was.

So Tom was all worrying and crowding her until she snapped.

They bickered. She couldn't remember the exact words that had been said. Insulting stuff mostly.

And then they kissed.

And the craziness stopped. She no longer had this need to fight everyone. He no longer drove her to lengths to forget him.

She had more reason to remember him with a fond smile now.

**3. Hormones:**

The next time he drove her crazy was mostly her own fault. Her emotions had been out of whack and she got easily hurt over the smallest things. They argued constantly and he often walked out leaving her to cry. On top of that she was so scared and wasn't sure what to do. After one extremely bad argument she refused to let him in the same room as her as she curled up and cried and watched what she thought was her world crumble around her.

According to Indigo during all of this crying Tom spent every moment in a pub staring at a beer or a whiskey or something. Anything that would 'burn me so much that I'd forget the insanity your little sister put me through today'. Indigo fed up being the go-between had ended up blurting the truth out to Tom.

The truth seemed to have sobered Tom up enough to cause him to run back to their apartment and sweep her up into a body-crushing hug.

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Didn't know how to"

The insanity, however, did not stop there when Rose's hormones continues to mess about for months on end.

**4. Mid-Life Crisis:**

He never did make it as a rock star. Ended up as a music teacher and did the occasional gig in a bar or something.

One day he took a look at himself and saw a middle-aged Has-Been that never actually made it.

So he began to find a better look, returning to his early twenties leather jacket and jeans. Started to find a better ride than the family car and left to go to New York often to try and record a CD.

Rose took one look at this 'new version' of Tom and then at her life. She was a stay at home artist who sold her pictures to earn money for the bills. She taught at the community centre and her husband was going to a city often.

She had become Eve and it terrified her.

She didn't want to become practically a single mother as her husband runs off with some new younger woman. She didn't want to end up completely forgetful and living in a shed.

So she lost it. He mentioned going to New York again and she threw a vase at his head. A ugly one that Bill had given them for Christmas one year.

"What the hell?" he shouted each time she threw a new item at his head. One barely missed as china shattered too closely to his ear for comfort.

They argued. Screaming at one another as Rose continued to chuck things at him. It was a miracle that the children were staying with Saffy during this. Otherwise they would have been terrified.

When they got to the bottom of it all. Tom laughed delightfully as he wrapped his arms round her waist. "Rose, you could never be Eve. You don't have her easy-going temper for starters" he said. "You're difficult and stubborn and very violent. Nothing like Eve at all"

"Is this supposed to make me feel better?"

"Rose, you're you and I'm me. We're not going to become the next Eve and Bill. We're better than that. I'm going through a phrase. A very bad one really. But that has never stopped me from looking only at you" he ducked down and put his lips against her ear as he whispered rather huskily into it. "My Permanent Rose. You're mine forever, remember?"

And suddenly the house got trashed in a far more pleasurable way. It was an extremely good thing that the children were staying with Saffy.

**5. Get Better:**

He hadn't left her side since the accident. No matter what the nurses and doctors and family does. He would not leave her side. He hadn't eaten or slept and his face was growing a beard from the lack of shaving. He hadn't changed or showered and he absoloutely refused to leave just in case she woke up and thought he had abandoned her.

"She's bound to wake up all right," Sarah muttered darkly, "with that smell no one can sleep"

But it's been two months and she hadn't.

Not yet.

He talked about everything and anything. The weather, the latest news and all those memories they have. He sang songs with his guitar and he clasped her hand desperately as he mumbled Indigo's Get Better Chant.

"I'm probably driving you crazy with all my talking and singing" he said one night. "But Rosie Pose, you're driving me crazy right now just laying here. Please Permanent Rose just wake up. For me, I'm begging you"

A moment silence and not even a twitch of a finger.

""

She never did.

And neither did he.


End file.
